Anyone who understands the political history of
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu would find such a scenario silly, weird and even
dangerous. The reason is: unlike two
friendly neighbours such as Odisha and West Bengal, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
have serious issues over sharing of river waters, and those burning topic
brings people regularly onto streets in protests. Therefore, Jayalalitha fielding her
candidates in Karnataka would be seen as hegemonistic, a way of entering
Karnataka politics to subvert the political system, only to gain something for
her own Tamil Nadu State. It would
undermine the democracy within Karnataka.
Such a scenario is unlikely. Jayalalitha
would never have campaigned in Karnataka.

And yet, today, we see such unlikely scenario
happening in Telangana.

There are two essential reasons why Naidu campaigning
in Telangana is not just downright amoral, but is sinister, and a threat of
democracy within Telangana.

The rivalry between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh is an
accepted fact. Almost every political pundit knows about
it. There are many unresolved issues pending
from the bifurcation, many corporations are still undivided, and most
importantly, there is this issue of sharing of river waters. Whenever Telangana moved ahead to build an
irrigation project within Telangana to tap into their rightful share of river
water, Naidu has objected to it by writing a letter to the Central
Government. He has demonstrated that he unequivocally
stands against the interests of Telangana and its people. Therefore, such a leader, from the
neighbouring state which is unfriendly, to come to Telangana to position his candidates
and campaign has only agenda: it is a subversive attempt to undermine the
interests of Telangana, an attempt to tamper into the democratic process within
Telangana to unfairly gain something for Andhra Pradesh.

Also, when Telangana State formation was announced on
9th December 2009 by P Chidambaram, it was Naidu and his MPs and
MLAs who stood against the formation of Telangana by protesting openly. Naidu was one of the main leaders of the
opposition to formation of Telangana. He sat on a strike in Delhi openly opposing
the formation of Telangana. After the
bifurcation, he used his clout as a partner in NDA to steal few of the mandals
from Telangana, which were then merged with Andhra Pradesh. He blatantly took the position of opposing the
interests of Telangana. Therefore his campaign
in Telangana once again shows the same arrogance of the Andhra leadership, the
very leadership Telangana fought against to form a new State. His
interests are antithetical to interests of Telangana.

His campaign in Telangana is not just amoral and
sinister, but it is hegemonistic and in every aspect completely anti-Telangana.
It should be summarily rejected by the
people of Telangana.

For a very long time Telangana people were
ashamed to speak Telangana in front of others, and the practice continues even
now though it is declining. Many Telangana people hide their accent when heard
in public forums. In some families, Telangana people ridicule their own
folk who speak Telangana and try to correct them. Some Telangana families
grew up imitating their Andhra neighbors completely rejecting their identity.
They hate being associated with the tag of Telangana.

Formation of State of Telangana has changed all that. Now, people are not afraid or shy or embarrassed
to speak Telangana. In fact, there is a
generation of young Telangana people who think it is uber cool to speak
Telangana. Therefore, it is not a
coincidence that formation of State of Telangana has heralded four successful
movies in the last one year that have a dominant Telangana element: Pelli Choopulu, Ami Tumi, Fida and Arjun
Reddy.

When referring to Telangana language in Telugu movies,
what I have noticed is that most people in the film industry refer to it as Slang.
That’s when I find that characterization problematic.

So, is Telangana a dialect, an accent or slang?

Dialect is another version of a language with
completely different words and phrases for expressing the same, sometimes
following a different syntax and grammar.
We have many dialects of Hindi in India like Bhojpuri and Haryanvi.

An accent is when you pronounce the same word
differently. Australians, New
Zealanders, and Americans pronounce the same words differently. In India too, Bengalis and Malayalee would
pronounce similar words quite differently.

Slang is an informal version of a language. The way Blacks in United States use informal
words, like chill or tripping. Most
often, slang is spoken colloquially, and is not considered acceptable in
written form, because it is informal. Of
late, what Black people speak is considered Ebonics, a dialect of American
English.

For a long time, Telangana was derided, ridiculed and
insulted because it was considered informal, something not worthy of being
written in a formal context, a slang.

But in reality, Telangana is a dialect (and not a slang), with its own
history, culture, and words and phrases (like Thokku for pickle), and now in
the State of Telangana it is a formal language, and therefore words spoken in
Telangana are no longer considered informal, but acceptable. That is one of the moot points of Telangana Movement.

As predicted long ago, formation of Telangana has brought onto the scene a new genre of Telugu movies, where hero or heroine or both speak
Telangana. K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), while
delivering on the State of Telangana, inadvertently delivered on something
else, a new film industry which is based in Telangana.

Now here comes another problem.

Cuss words in Arjun Reddy

The movie Arjun Reddy depicts in-your-face
Telangana, incorporating those cuss words that some Telangana youth speak quite
freely. And that has created furore
amongst some Andhra TV anchors. It goes
without saying that the objections raised now against Arjun Reddy have the
similar Andhra-Telangana bias, where those who grew with Andhra ethos could not
digest how people could speak such a language.

Arjun Reddy used the Indian version of Motherfucker
(Madarchod) which created outrage amongst two Andhra Telugu anchors. They started calling it an insult to
Mothers. In reality, most cuss words are really not a
direct reference to one’s mother, one’s sister, one’s father.

To understand Arjun Reddy, one should look at Irish
language. It is a dialect of English
language, but the population in Ireland use cuss words quite freely in their
day-to-day life. They use words like
fuck, bollocks, shite, cunt, even at a family dinner and the same is reflected
in movies. Not everyone does, but some
do. And it is quite OK to hear those
words in an Irish film.

Not everyone in Telangana uses the cuss words spoken
in Arjun Reddy, but some do, and it is quite OK to hear those words in a Telangana
film.

When Samuel Jackson says it, it is not an insult to a
mother. It is a part of the language. We
can debate whether that language is a good thing or not. But it is still part of the language.

A word to the two peevish Telugu TV anchors: Arjun
Reddy is an adult film, to be watched by adults. If you have a problem, don’t
go to the movies. You could continue
watching your hip-gyrating, double entendres, vulgar insinuations, slapping the heroine
on the butt, pressing her bosoms, in the other Telugu movies with your families,
as is your wont.

But no one can stop the sweeping phenomenon. Telangana
movies are an in-thing now, and they come with our idiosyncrasies, our habits,
our cuss words, and our endearing words.
You may not like it, but they are not going to go away.

Wednesday, March 01, 2017

When
you hear on TV that Someone said the above statement, the first thing that
comes to your mind these days is, that Someone must be
anti-national. That Someone doesn’t
deserve to be in India. Ministers who have
the important job of running the country are stopping their work to tweet, or
grab the nearest TV camera, to say, ‘Someone should be thrown out of the
country. Why live in this country if you
hate it?’

So
what does it mean to say ‘I hate India’?

‘I
hate India’ says an activist

An
activist who is fighting against construction of dams, after being harassed,
arrested, and tormented, says, ‘I hate India, for its apathy towards those who
have to leave their homes’. All of a
sudden, this sentence doesn’t look anti-national anymore.

‘I
hate India’ says a tourist

A Indian
tourist who travels the world gets back to India, and looks at the pollution,
the dirt, the trash, and the garbage everywhere, and says, ‘I hate India. I
think we should start cleaning our cities first’. All of a sudden, this sentence doesn’t look
anti-national anymore.

‘I
hate India’, says an angry mother

An
old Indian mother who lost her husband, says, ‘I hate India. Which makes me
stand in line for many months before giving me my pension’. All of a sudden, this sentence doesn’t look
anti-national anymore.

‘I
love India’, says a terrorist

Before
blowing up a big bomb in an Indian city, a terrorist records his voice and puts
on internet, ‘I love India. I love it so
much that I really want every Indian to feel the pain of love I have for them’. All of a sudden, ‘I love India’ doesn’t sound
so endearing anymore.

Monday, November 21, 2016

[Disclaimer: All the views expressed
in here are personal and do not reflect the opinion or the position of the
organization that the author works for.]

It is becoming evident from the long lines at
ATMs across India, and the troubles faced by the farmers and small-time traders,
that the implementation of the demonitization initiative has been quite
poor. Clearly, it could have been
planned better and executed better. As
Supreme Court of India warned, if things don’t improve, we could see riots in
this country.

But the poor implementation is not good enough
reason to conclude that this exercise will not achieve its objectives.

So what are those objectives?

Unlike most people in India, including those who
actually introduced this initiative – namely the Prime Minister and his team, I
don’t have unrealistic expectations from the current initiative of
denotification of the existing 500 and 1000 rupee notes.

According to me, the objective of this exercise
is not that much about curbing counterfeit money, nor about trying to
‘get out’ the black money from their hideouts. Yes, the introduction of new currency notes would
obviate the problem of counterfeit notes, but only for a while, because if the
enemy is insistent on copying and releasing even the new notes, they could do
so, given some amount of time. And,
unlike what most people hope, there is no need for black money to be deposited
into the banks. If that money cease to
exist, it is good enough. The shortfall
in circulation or non-existence of the black money is good enough for the
Government to infuse more printed notes, thereby giving itself a fillip in public
spending on infrastructure projects.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

I
hear lot of criticism launched against Demonitization. I cite some of them here.

‘Poor
people are suffering’

‘It
is the common man who is hurt.Look at
the long lines at each ATM.They are
standing there for hours’.

And
yet the narrative is not as simple as it sounds.When these people standing in line at ATM are
asked if they are facing trouble, almost all of them say, ‘Yes’.But when asked if this move is good, they all
say, ‘Yes’.Then they add, ‘This is an
inconvenience, but in the larger good, this is OK.On the whole, we support this initiative from
Prime Minister Modi’.

So,
it all depends on what part of narrative you want to hear.If you hear only the first part, it does
clearly say that people are inconvenienced to a great extent.But if you hear the second part, common man endorses
Modi’s demonitization.

Did
Government bungle up its implementation?

Yes.

First,
it did not prepare itself with enough new rupee notes it wanted to
introduce.It should have had enough
stock with it before announcing the demonitization of old notes.The paucity of new notes is creating lot of
trouble to many businesses, including the common man.

Second.
Why did they not create 500 and 2000
rupee notes the same size as old 500 and 1000 rupee note? That would not have
required the calibration of ATMs which is currently underway, and is causing
the impediment in delivering cash to people.

It
definitely looks like Indian economy has come to a standstill. However, given few more days, with more new
notes brought into circulation, the problem of paucity of notes will fade away
and normalcy will be restored.

Friday, November 11, 2016

I am not a Modi-Bhakt. In fact, I have been a big
critic of Narendra Modi, when it comes to his tolerance of religious
intolerance in this country. And yet,
today I stand in support of his historic decision to invalidate the legal
tender for the existing 500 and 1000 rupee notes that are in circulation.

Those who meet me usually ask me for a solution to
some of the problems that we face in India, probably because I tend to maintain
the attitude that I do have a solution to such problems ;-). So, over the last many years, when anyone had
asked me, ‘How do we root out black money in the country?’ my answer was, ‘In
fact, the solution is quite simple. I
would make the 500 and 1000 rupees notes invalid as of today. And everyone has to come to the bank to
exchange and get new notes starting tomorrow.’

The discussion would then usually go into whether
the political leadership in India would ever do it. The answer would be – ‘it is not a very
pragmatic decision for a political leader, he would invariably alienate most of
his colleagues in politics, because politics in India is funded mostly by the
black money. One would really need balls to do it, and our
politicians rarely have that’.

And yet, three days ago, I get a call from a good
friend. ‘Watch the news’, he said. Unfolding before me was the one of the most
defining moments in Indian History. Prime Minister was announcing the
demonitization of 500 and 1000 rupee notes.

In 1947, Nehru in his famous Tryst with
Destiny speech, said:

A moment comes, which comes but
rarely in history, when we step out from the old to new, when an age ends, and
when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.

On 8
Nov 2016, Modi in his speech announcing demonetization of old 500 and 1000
rupee notes said:

There comes a time in the history of
country’s development when a need is felt for strong and decisive stand… there
come moments, those moments come but rarely.

And we
will all remember this moment twenty years from now, where India stepped from
the old into new. Where an age ends, and
a new age begins.

And yet
I find some criticism, some naysayers.

How
could you not celebrate this moment?

Yes,
there would be some hiccups. Never will
such a transition be smooth for everyone.
When Telangana was struggling for statehood, many people complained of
inconvenience caused by strikes and bandhs, and I asked, would you rather allow
a large section of people not have their freedoms just because you are inconvenienced?

Like
how a small child cries in pain when given vaccination for her own good, these
are nothing but small inconveniences that we face right now, but we would have
found a cure to curbing black money in this country.

Let’s
celebrate. And take inspiration to do something
bold!

This
message is for all state governments across the country. Pass those bold bills, take those bold
decisions. Go against the tide, piss
your colleagues, challenge the status quo!
Reform, rectify, improve, break down, invent, be creative!

Friday, November 04, 2016

In August 2015, we landed in Taiwan a day
after Category-5 Super Typhoon Soudelor made a landfall with destructive winds
reaching 215 km/h, with torrential rains causing widespread damage and
disruptions, accumulating 632 mm of rain in 12 hours, where a record-breaking 5
million households lost power on the island, and yet the roads were
intact, and the city came back to life within a day. Looking at how well
the city looked and functioned, we couldn’t believe that they had experienced
such a powerful typhoon the day before.

In September 2016, Hyderabad city faced a
24-hour long rain fall from the active south-west monsoon, accumulating 164 mm
of rain, but that brought the city to a standstill, resulting in
inundation of several localities, breaching of drainage system, with many of
the roads completely damaged, causing hours of traffic jams across the city.

Hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, storms,
flash floods - these are some of the extreme but routine natural weather
conditions that hit most parts of the world. Developed countries tend to
face them as much as any other country. And yet, the roads in those
countries don’t get damaged the way Indian roads take a hit after a single
large rain. Those cities don’t get inundated and don't come to a grinding
halt so easily as Indian cities do.

Friday, July 08, 2016

Recently,
Salman Khan in an interview
said he felt like a raped woman.

“While
shooting, during those six hours, there’d be so much of lifting and thrusting
on the ground involved. That was tough for me because… When I used to walk out
of the ring, after the shoot, I used to feel like a raped woman.”

The twitterati
went abuzz taking umbrage to this remark: One person asks, ‘how does he
know what a raped woman feels’. Amir Khan thought it was ‘insensitive’.
Kangana Ranaut thinks his comments
were ‘horrible’. Anurag Kashyap felt
they were ‘very thoughtless’,
while Freida Pinto takes ‘offence’.

Such
a reaction is quite understandable. This
is definitely an insensitive remark in the modern context. Now, with so much awareness in gender
discrimination, sexual harassment of women, and child abuse, these statements
sound very insensitive and callous.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

I have not seen so
many anti-nationals in my lifetime. It’s
like raining traitors this season in India.
All of a sudden, there are traitors and anti-nationals everywhere in
this country. Like how the enemies of the
State suddenly came onto the scene from within in various countries of Europe in
early 1900s, like in Germany, and in Italy, there are enemies of India everywhere
from within India. These enemies of
India come in the form and shape of protesting Dalit students in university
campus, they come in the form of ordinary farm worker who ate beef, and they
come in the form of journalists and editors.

Sedition cases,
those used by the British Empire to incarcerate the freedom fighters of India,
are springing up everywhere like it’s the Spring Revolution of Tunisia. This country is geared for
witch-hunting. All of a sudden each of
us is asked to prove our patriotism. To
do that, we have to chant a devout slogan for a Goddess. Otherwise we are traitors who will sent to
Pakistan.

And how do these
traitors look? They look just like you, the ordinary people, they are your nice
neighbors. Oh! Don’t be fooled! They are
all traitors, they are all anti-nationals, as the Hindutva leaders tell you. They come in the form of liberals, the
seculars, the communists, the socialists, the SCs, the STs, the OBCs, the
Muslims, and the Christians. They come in the form of students, the teachers,
the professors, the journalists, the editors, the book writers, and the movie
makers. They are everywhere. They are the enemies within. And amidst all these anti-nationals, there is
only one patriot. He wears a Khakhi
uniform or wears a tilak. And he owes his allegiance to Hindutva ideology.

And there is only
one prescribed and sanctioned expression of love for your country. You have to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. Anything less, you are traitor. ‘Jai Hind’ won’t do. ‘Hindustan Zindabad’ won’t do.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

On the controversy
surrounding Asaduddin Owaisi’s refusal to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, Bharka
Dutt of NDTV asks Owaisi, ‘Why would you say NO to a slogan which does not
have a religious connotation - that simply describes the country to be a
motherland?’

When I Google Searched ‘Bharath Mata’ in Images, this is
what I get. These are the first few
results.

Another controversy is now brewing across the
country. Asaduddin Owaisi, MP from Hyderabad, said that he won’t
say ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. He insisted that he won’t chant this slogan even if
someone puts a sword on his neck.

Owaisi says he is a patriot, but not a nationalist (the
way RSS defines). Mr. Rakesh Sinha, the
other commentator, says that a person who doesn’t say, ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’
cannot love his country. Whereas Owaisi asks, do you have a problem if we say, ‘Hindustan Zindabad'? [He later said, 'Jai Hind' on TV]

This raises fundamental questions about how we view
our country. What is India to each of
us?

Monday, March 07, 2016

During the course of JNU row many have contended in TV debates and
online discussions that ordinary people in India do not
have a right to protest a Supreme Court Decision. One
anchor even asked a JNU student leader, ‘Do you think you know more than the
Supreme Court judges that you could protest their decision?’

Most Indians tend to think that a protest against
Supreme Court decision should not be allowed.
However, in most mature democracies, including India, people have
protested against Supreme Court decisions. There are many examples. But here I describe a notable one.

When Abraham Lincoln was the President, the US Government
passed 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to US
Constitution to emancipate Black people in that country, giving them equal
rights. For about twenty years they
enjoyed this freedom as equal citizens.
However, a Supreme Court Decision (Plessy v. Ferguson 1896) reversed
most of these amendments thereby creating Jim Crow laws that implemented
‘separate but equal’ doctrine. Blacks
were segregated, lynched, and denied voting rights. Basically, the Black man was not treated as
equal citizen.

It took major protests of 1950s and 1960s to reverse
the Supreme Court decision of 1896.
People came out in thousands to protest these laws. Martin Luther King is one of the leaders of
this Civil Rights Movement.